Heater



March 11, 1930.

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T. D. CASSERLY mmn FilodApr'il 9, 192a Patented Mar. 11, 1930 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE THOMAS D. OASSERLY, .OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNOR TO W'EIL-MCLAIN COMPANY, I

OF MICHIGAN CITY, INDIANA, A CORPORATION OF DELAWARE I HEATER Application filed April 9,

, now in use, which were originally designed primarily for the burning of coal as a fuel,

1 many of them for soft coal. Boilers so designed necessarily require a relatively large amount of flue area and correspondingly 10 large flue openings or passages to provide the necessary communication between sections where the boiler is of the water section type. Where coal is used as a .fuel, there is a comparatively large volume of volatiles distilled off and also a relatively large volume of products of combustion, and these must be accommodated in the passage through the boiler or heater to the chimney, in order that as many of the heat units may be extracted therefrom and transferred to the water sections as possible. It is also well known that a large number of said boilers now in use are annually being converted to use with gas as the fuel, and experience has demonstrated that when so converted, the efficiency of the boiler is. not as great as desirable. This is due to the fact that the volume of the products of combustion from gas as a fuel is relatively much less than the volume of the products of combustion of coal as a fuel for heating a given sized boiler, so that with gas as thelfuel the lesser volume of products of combustion passes more rapidly through the flues and flue openings to the chimney and there is notsufficient time allowed forproperly extracting the maximum number of heat units therefrom.

One object of my invention is to provide very simple and inexpensive means, in the nature of an auxiliary or accessory, that may be used with boilers now in use or new boilers originally designed for burning coal as the fuel, whereby the efliciency of such boilers, when using gas as the fuel, may be increased.

More specifically, an object of my invention is to provide baffle plates for restricting the area of the flue openings or communicating passages through the sections so that the effective available area of said openings will -'be regulated to produce the most eflicient 0p- 1928. Serial No. 268,515.

eration of the boiler when converted to use i with gas as a fuel, said baflies or plates being further characterized by the fact that they may be readily inserted and put in proper position through the usual flue cleanout doors of coal-burning boilers.

A further specific object of my invention is to provide removable baflies particularly designed for use with those types of sectional boilers where the flue openings of the horizontal water sections are staggered and alternated on diametrically opposite sides of the centers of the sections, said balfles being so designed that when in proper position a bal anced' draft action is obtained.

In the drawing, forming a part of this specification, Figure 1 is a vertical, diametrioal, sectional view of a round, horizontal, sectional type water heater orboiler, showing my improvements in connection therewith. Figure 2 is a horizontal plan view of one of the water sections showing my improvements in connection therewith, one of the flue cleanout doors being indicated in section. And Figure 3 is a top plan view of one form of gas burner adapted to be employed and showing also my improved means for restricting air in-flow.

In said drawing, 10 denotes the supporting base section of a round type boiler; 11 a water-containing fire-pot section; 12 a watercontaining horizontal crown section; 18 a horizontal water-containing intermediate section; 14: a horizontal water-containing dome section; and 15 is a smoke-hood or takeoff. The various water sections are in direct communication with each other by sets of nipples, two of which are indicated at 1616 in Fig. 2, the same being located diametrically, asshown. The fire-pot section is provided with a clinker door 17, fuel door 18 and grates 19, of the usual type for coal-burning. The ash pit door is indicated at 21 and the horizontal water sections are provided with flue cleanout doors 2222 arranged diametrically in the usual manner.

The particular boiler illustrated is of the round type, as indicated in Figure 2, and each of the crown and intermediate sections is provided with an arcuate flue opening or passage 23. These flue openings 23 will be alternated or staggered, i. e., the flue opening 23 of the crown section will be at one side of'the boiler, preferably at the back, and the flue opening 23 of the next above intermediate section will be at the opposite side of the boiler or at the front, as shown in Figure 1. Horizontal flues are-left between the several sections, as indicated at 24-24, and the dome section has a passage 25 communicating with the smoke-hood 15, said passage 25 being flue opening 23, and so on until the products of combustion passto the chimney, it being understood that there may be one or more intermediate sections 13, depending upon the desired capacity of the'boiler. I

. The sizes of the flue openings'23 are shown in the drawing proportionate to the sizes of the sections as they boiler designed for coal as the fuel. There gas is used as the fuel, thearea of the flue openings 23 is too great and allows the products of combustion of the gas fuel to pass too quickly to the chimney and only a. small portion of the heat units is extracted. To overcome this, I provide the improved baffle plates 26, one of which is shown-in top plan in Figure 2. Each baffle plate 26 is also of arcuate formation similar to the arcuate'formation of the flue opening 23, but of lesser area than the opening 23, as shown in Figure 2. The length of each bafiie' plate 26 is such. that the ends 126 thereof will extend slightly beyond the ends of the flue opening 23 and rest upon the top of the corresponding water section. The plates 26 are further made so that they preferably cover the inner portions of the arcuate openings 23, that is, those portions nearest the center of the boiler, the inner edge 127 of the plate slightly overlying the inner edge 123 of the flue opening.

From the outer arcuate edge 128 of the plate is extended a radial flange 28 at the center, said flange 28 resting upon the water section beyond the outer edge 223 of the flue opening. Preferably, also, the flange 28 is formed with a depending lug or projection 29, adapted to engage the vertical wall 223 of the flue opening and hence limit or position the baffle plate 26 to that shown in the drawing.

With the baffle plates positioned as shown and described, it is evident that the area of the flue openings 23 is materially reduced and the effective flue opening consists of a would be made in the.

relatively narrow arcuate opening farthest from the center. The flue openings of the section being staggered and diametrically disposed, the tendency for the products of combustion is to take the shortestroute to the chimney, that is, to pass back and forth on a diametrical line.- By forming the flue openings 23 of elongated arcuate form and making the baffle plates 26 of corresponding shape, the products of combustion are induced to spread over the entire areas of thefwater sections. The distance between theend portion of one flue opening 23 and the nearest end portionof the flue opening 23 in the adjacent section is less, than the distance between the central points of such two fl ue op en ings and hence the greater draft at the central portions, which induces the back'and forth travel of the gases, will be compensated for by the lesser amount of travel required 7' for the gases between the end portions of the flue openings. In this manner, a more uni= form distribution oflthe products of combustionover the horizontal surfaces of the sections in the travel back and forth through the boiler is obtainedyand the use of my spe-f cially shaped ba-flle, plates 26- serves .to mainis adapted, to be associated. In this manner,

the size of the flue openings may be readily changed without taking down the boiler sec tions when it is desired to'convert the boiler for burning gas.

' As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, any desirable type of gas burner may be employed. Inv the drawings, I have illustrated one well known form, the same consisting of a central unit 40 and three outer units or gangs41-41 which unit or gang consists of a plurality of gas burners or tips 42 proper,

preferably arranged as best illustrated in Figure 1, so that two burners or tips are disposed adjacent each other and the jets therefrom will mingle and form a common flame for each pair. The gas is supplied to the gang or burners by suitable piping as indi- "ios 7 cated at 43. .The gas burners per se form no part of my invention, but the'same are shown employed in connection with a plate 44 of circular form, the plate restingupon the grate bars 19 and being of such area as to shut off, for all practical purposes, passage of air from the ash pit 45 to the combustioncham I ber of the fire-pot... Said plate 44 is preferably made in two semi-circular sections. The

plate 44 is provided to restrict the in-flowof air from the ash pit ofthe combustion chamber and hence to the gas burners,-since an unrestricted flow would result in inefiicient heating of the boiler. The flow of air is regulated by providing a series of spaced holes or openings 4747 arranged preferably in a circular series around the plate 44, the area of the individual openings 47 being relatively small and the openings being uniformly spaced so as to thereby admit of a plurality of small currents of air at uniformly spaced points adjacent the periphery of the fire-pot and directly beneath the gas jets. By making the plate 44 in two sections, it is evident that the same may be readily inserted through the fuel feed door without dismantling the heater.

I have herein shown and described what I now consider the preferred manner of carrying out my invention, but the same is merely illustrative and I contemplate all changes and modifications that come Within the scope of the claim appended hereto.

7 I claim:

In a boiler, the combination with horizontal water-containing sections having horizon tal flues therebetween and provided with cleanout doors, said sections being provided with flue openings alternately disposed on diametrically opposite sides of the boiler,

each flue opening being of arcuate formation concentric with the center of the boiler; and detachable bafile plates, insertable through the cleanout doors for said flue openings, each said plate being also of arcuate formation and arranged to cover the innermost side of each arcuate flue opening whereby to leave relatively narrowed flue openings at the maximum distance from the centers of the sections and thereby insure more uniform distribution of the products of combustion back and forth between the sections.

In witness that I claim the foregoing I have hereunto subscribed my name this 24th day of March, 1928.

' THOMAS D. CASSERLY. 

